


Gauze

by abscission



Series: roses and raspberry leaves [1]
Category: Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Light Angst, chasons - free form, soulmate - freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 14:32:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17706056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abscission/pseuds/abscission
Summary: The music goes round and round in Carmen's head.or: soulmate AU where they share the music stuck in each other's heads. proximity helps.





	Gauze

**Author's Note:**

> **12/7/'19:** edited some formatting and tiny errors.

Growing up, Black Sheep had no idea of soulmates.

Growing up, Black Sheep always had music playing in the back of her mind, the orchestral pit to her stage.

Of course, she had no idea what it meant; didn't know it _meant_ anything. They came to her, and she hummed them, and sometimes her nannies would recognize a tune here or there, and then they'd ask, kind and warm and with that tone of hidden delight that made Black Sheep _really_ smile,  _where did you learn that tune?_

And she'd reply cheerfully,  _I heard it!_ and they'd all assume it's Countess Cleo, forgetting to close her door. For the longest time, the staff had the impression that Black Sheep was as close to the Countess as she was to the Coach, up to and including the Countess herself. When classes began...let's just say Black Sheep had to work extra hard. 

To Black Sheep, it was simply another connection to the outside world that she treasured. _One day,_ she promised herself, as the chords of _Jupiter_ rose and crashed on knowledge and titles pilfered from days of eavesdropping at classroom doors,  _one day I will listen to these in a concert hall._

Then she enrolled. The music stopped, but she was so excited at the prospect of finally becoming a V.I.L.E. operative and seeing the world and making friends (or just one) that she put it in the back of her mind. By then, she had Player to route music to her phone and the archives of V.I.L.E at her fingertips and she had Gray, and she did not mind the absence in the least. 

Plus, it gave her something to share with Gray that was beyond the school walls, beyond the shores of the island — names of composers she painstakingly learned; Verdi, Puccini, Mozart, Wagner… — sometimes they whiled away whole afternoons, playing Spot-the-Piece as she hummed and he guessed. It made their friendship _real_.

 

 

That it had to be Player, trying to keep the shock and amusement and second-hand mortification out of his voice, who enlightens her (a stumbling but thorough explanation) about soulmate bonds— Carmen chalks it up to the bad pedagogy of V.I.L.E. Cookie Booker was right on one thing: how can a child raised by thieves be whole?

 “It isn’t much of a system at all, really,” Player quickly elaborates at her thunderstruck expression, “look, barely anyone finds their soulmate, ok? If the bond was anything more concrete—words, maybe, or thoughts, then maybe more people would’ve found their soulmates, but as it is now its barely a clue. Most people ignore it. It doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to, Red." 

Yes, that’s right. Carmen shook her head, trying to dislodge ridiculous ideas. 

Surely, her memories of Gray have been glazed over with nostalgic fondness. Very easy to have memories of simpler times appear to be better than they really were.

Humans and their stupid monkey brains.

 

 

The matryoshka dolls were in her pocket; the V.I.L.E storage house exposed to—what was it, Interpol? She can deal with whoever it was that placed those trackers on her dolls, although she personally preferred if it was Gray. She had quite a tale planned if he showed up.

A view of Paris grew, unbidden, into her mind. Wistfully, she imagined flying all the way there and admiring it from the air, even as she landed on a secluded spot on the train platform and switched to civilian clothes.

It would've been a truly spectacular view of the City of Lights. 

She's barely on the train when a record scratches to life, faint but clear as a bell in her mind, _...quand il me prend dans ses bras, il me parle tout bas, je vois la vie en rose..._

She controls the spike of panic and says, quite calmly, to Player, "Are you humming something?" 

"Nope. Why?"

"Oh, nothing," she says, entering the first class carriage, train rumbling underneath her feet, and the words becoming clearer and clearer, clear as a summer sky, "must be someone on the train, then."

_...Il est entré dans mon coeur, une part de bonheur, dont je connais la cause..._

The scenery flashes past the window. She sits and takes out the bag of matryoshka dolls.

A hum from behind her sounds in close harmony with the buzz of his weapon and the slide of the door. The vocalist has dropped their role onto the instrumentalist, so she fills in the lyrics in her head; she's heard Edith Piaf. Hard to have spent some time in France and not know Piaf.

_...Il me l'a dit, l'a jure pour la vie..._

"Well, well," says Gray, a smirk on his face, turning up the power on his rod. "blast from the past, eh?" 

Carmen's heart is racing, and she covers her nervousness with an annoyed shake of her wrist.  "Dude, seriously? Static cling?" She's surprised her voice comes out steady.

Gray's smirk had widened. He doesn't look like the Gray she remembers. He's grown, like she had, filled out the corners of his suit; but this one has too many sharp edges, too much swagger. This Gray reminds her of Tigress. 

The music had stopped somewhere between the zap and the static, clicked off like a door slammed shut.

It's just her, Gray, and the rumbling train.

To hide her sudden unease (what's the matter with her? it's Gray, she prepared for this! it all went according plan, didn't it?) she delivers the prepared lines, if perhaps with a little more strength then the situation called for.

He hadn't aimed to kill, after all, only to disarm. 

"And you didn't think I'd really take any of your bait without checking for a tracking device, did you Gray?" She smiles. He's getting soft if he thinks the best thief in their class would forget the basics of Stealth 101.

Maybe soft is good. Maybe soft means no killing.

It _is_ all going as she planned. Gray is willing to listen, and so she launches into the story of her life with some measure of relief. This is familiar ground.

He laughs at her recollections. It's warm, nostalgic, and entirely out of place. It makes her think of shadowed corners and conversations after dark, and she suddenly wishes they had more time together. More than a single year.

Maybe he will be on her side after all this.

A strange sort of look came into his eyes when she went over her distant-but-fulfilling childhood, but it passed quickly and she went on to greater things, so she didn't think much of it. Hopefully it was vindictive anger at V.I.L.E.'s abysmal child-rearing practices and not a sign of some fundamental different between them.

But then she finishes her story. Watches his face for a reaction, any reaction, and comes to the realization that they mean different things when they say  _home._ The power gauge clicks, the weapon powers up, and Carmen sighs.

 

 

 _It wasn't to be,_ she thinks, wistfully, tucking the collars of her red coat around Gray's chin.

Perhaps _La Vie En Rose_ isn't the best song to be on their radio, no matter how classic it is for the occasion.

_Non, rien de rien. Non, je ne regrette rien..._

" _Ni le bien, qu'on me feit. Ni le mal, tout ça m'est bien égale_ ," she hums, looking down at her handiwork.

But she does regret. She regrets not stealing hours away from class to talk to him more. She regrets not contacting him earlier. She regrets leaving him behind. Maybe she regrets knowing him at all, because she'll certainly regret what she's going to do. 

_...Aujourd'hui, ça commence avec toi!_

Leaning in, she places a kiss on the side of his cheek. "Bye bye indeed, Gray."

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> yeah I have more in this 'verse to do.
> 
> and whoops I should add the translation:  
> [La Vie en rose](https://www.frenchlyricstranslations.com/la-vie-en-rose-edith-piaf-french-lyrics-and-english-translation/)  
> Quand il me prend dans ses bras  
> \- _When he takes me into his arms_  
>  Il me parle l'a tout bas  
> \- _He speaks to me softly_  
>  Je vois la vie en rose  
> \- _And I see life through rose-colored glasses_  
>  /  
> Il est entré dans mon coeur  
> \- _He has entered into my heart_  
>  Une part de bonheur  
> \- _A bit of happiness_  
>  Dont je connais la cause  
> \- _That I know the cause of_  
>  /  
> l me l'a dit, l'a jure pour la vie  
> \- _He told me, he swore to me, for life_  
>   
> 
> [Non, je ne regrette rien](https://www.frenchlyricstranslations.com/non-je-ne-regrette-rien-edith-piaf-french-lyrics-and-english-translation/)  
> Non, rien de rien  
> \- _No, absolutely nothing_  
>  Non, je ne regrette rien  
> \- _No, I regret nothing_  
>  Ni le bien qu'on me fait  
> \- _Not the good things that have happened_  
>  Ni le mal, tout ça m'est bien égale  
> \- _Nor the bad, it's all the same to me_  
>  /  
> Aujourd'hui... ça commence avec toi!  
> \- _Today... it begins with you!_
> 
> so yeah. it started with opera and it ended in chasons :/ who cares though, right? onwards with the poshness!  
> come find me on [tumblr](https://burntheupholstery.tumblr.com/).


End file.
